People are strange
by Rockcityhomacidexx
Summary: How will the gang get along after the death of sodapop? Starts out as a play since i wrote it for theater. will progress as a story :D


"People Are Strange"

Scene Location: Starts off in a rundown bar. Empty at first except for the narrator (Dallas Winston) then it starts to get busy. Drugs, country music, beer, and smoke fill the air. Then, scene changes to outside where it's a late spring night, clouds fog the air and it was in the mid to late 30's. No one was walking the streets except for the few people getting home from their parties.

Time: 1:30 am.

Special Headings: "People Are Strange."

Setting: A bar drinks flood the place, a juke box in the corner. Switching to a dead spring night where it seems everything to be still and tension is in the air. Tulsa Oklahoma, Saturday, March 14, 1964.

The Players:

Dallas Winston: Dead. Narrates the scene, fills the audience in with everything that happened before the scene took place.

Ponyboy Curtis: A once sweet boy who turned into a hood after his closest friends die and his brother enlisting in the army shortly after. He now does drugs, drinks, and quit track and writing. He stopped watching sunsets and is now always landing himself into the slammer.

Curly Shepard: Ponyboy's closest friend since Dallas and Johnny died. Trouble maker, if he isn't at Buck's, then he is in jail. He looks up to his older brother Tim, who is one of the biggest hoods in Oklahoma.

Sodapop Curtis: Ponyboy's older brother who is fighting over in Vietnam. Pony gets his letter that changes his whole spectrum of the current life he lives.

Darrel Curtis: Ponyboy's older brother and guardian.

X

Dallas Winston walks into Bucks, where the only people there are Buck and an old man. They are in a freeze frame.

Dally: [Looks around] Wow, this is Bucks now? Hell I haven't been here since the night the boy's took off for Windrixville. This was always a choice place to go if you wanted a blast. Now it looks like only this chrome head here is the only costumer. This place always had blitzed hoods roaming around as soon as it opened. Maybe people are finally sick of Johnny Cash coming out of the radio. [Rolls eyes and walks over to the stairs as the door opens up.]

Ponyboy: Yeah, yeah. I'll call sugar. [Receives a kiss on the cheek before he closes the door and sleeps the day away again]

Dally: [shakes head] that hood up there is the one and only Ponyboy Curtis. Yes sir, you heard me right. When he saw me get shot, he just went off the deep end. He didn't even finish that assignment he was starting about that week, he found no use. He went, and is still going through, a depression. Sure, it happens when you lose your friends, but hell, Sodapop and Steve enlisted right after Soda read the letter saying the kid wasn't his. Yup, that was the great ol' news Sandy sent him right before she went to Florida. Anyways, back to Ponyboy. He started hanging with my best friend's, Tim Shepard, little brother Curly. He introduced Ponyboy to everything I tried to keep him away from. Hell, even Tim yelled at Curly for possessing Pony. [Starts towards the door as people start flooding in. Curly strolls in.]

Curly: Ponyboy Curtis! You here, kid? [Yell as running up the stairs, banging on his door.]

Pony: What the hell do you want, man? [Just got woke up by Curly, slightly aggravated by the entrance]

Curly: Dude, Darry told me to give this to you. [Gives him a letters]

Pony: [glances at the letters, one with Sodapop's handwriting and one with an Army stamp.] Wonder what this is…

Curly: Daddy-o didn't seem too tuff when he handed it to me. Looks like Tim's face when a raunchy kitten is trying to get him upstairs.

Pony: [chuckles and tugs on his leather jacket, walking passed Curly and straight downstairs to get a drink, shoving the letters in his inside pockets] Don't wig out, his face is permanently like that.

Curly: Ya' know, ma says those letters are bad news. Her friend got one sayin' her kid was dead. Remember Ted Lions?

Ponyboy: You're thicker than a three dollar milkshake, ya dig? [Drinks his beer and goes towards the door.] I'll be back. Better have my stuff by the time I get back, Shepard, I'm sick of being short. I have a feelin' that I'll need some of it when I get back.

Curly nods his head as Ponyboy leaves out the door into the crisp spring air. It was so dark you could barely see, except the few lights coming from the park. Sitting at the park, the two ghosts of Dally and Soda appear. Soda was standing at the fountain, knowing that's where his younger brother would go to, to read the letters. Dallas was by the jungle gym, smoking a cigarette.

Sodapop: You should really put that out. [Glances at the cigarette]

Dallas: Why? We're already dead.

Sodapop: Please, don't remind me about that.

Dallas: [walks over to Sodapop.] It happens to everyone; just remember you're with Johnny, your parents, and me. It's not too bad.

Soda: [shakes his head and puts his head in his hands] who's going to wake Pony up? Be the one who stops him and Darry from fighting? Take him under his wing…

Darry: [hits him softly.] Kid, you haven't done that in about 2 years, because you were getting out of the service in a week doesn't mean things would be the same between you too. Besides, you were moving out to marry that broad. I've been watching you, ya know.

Soda: [half smiles as pony enters] I guess you're right.

Dally: I always am.

As they walk off stage, Pony strolls over to the fountain remembering repressed memories of the night him and Johnny killed the soc, when Soda told him he was leaving for the army, and where he was arrested for the first time.

Pony: [takes out the letters] now let's see what's diggin' at Dare…

[Sodapop's voice]

Dear Ponyboy,

Can you believe in just three weeks I'm coming home? We're having a huge party with some of my G.I. bill, I promise. I met this little Dolly, she's a nurse and she's going home to Windrixville. Can you believe it? We've been going out for two years, but I was keepin' it a secret cause I didn't know if she was extending her term or not. You'd like her, Pone. She's real smart and pretty. Hell, I even have her mirror warmer on my jeep. I'm givin' her a ring when we get back to the states. I want you to be my best man. Send everyone me and steve-o's love! Tell Evie we're comin' home, all the mail is comin' back for some reason!

Love, Sodapop Patrick Curtis.

Pony: Too bad Evie moved a couple of months ago, poor Steve. [Shakes his head but has a goofy smile on his face, he couldn't wait till his brother got home. He opens the next letter. A deeper voice emerges.]

Dear Family/Friends of Sodapop Curtis,

We regret to inform you Sodapop Patrick Curtis was killed in battle at 8:19 on the Morning of Monday, March 9, 1964 while an enemy force shot him 9 times.

Sincerely,

Ltn. Gregory James Pratt  
United States Military  
Army base 7044.


End file.
